Author: missionspaul

Thinking
Acts 5:4
“Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God.”

What made you think that? This is a big question. It indicates that our thoughts can evolve from something else. That we can be in control of what we think. That we can actually think our thoughts. A thought is a thought but we can ponder on them, we can think on them.
Some of our thoughts are destructive, some lead us to act in ways we never thought we would. What made you think of doing such a thing?
1. A previous thought: the money was at his disposal. He was not forced to give the whole or any of the amount from the sale of his property. So what was he thinking? Most probably he was thinking something along the lines of: “I want to be noticed also for being generous”. What people think of you can sometimes overwhelm your wisdom.
2. A Pressure of circumstance: he was part of the church community where extravagant giving was taking place, people were doing amazing things in the area of generosity. So what was the pressure on him? Most probably other people and their strength of character and perhaps what he saw as some accolade for their giving so impressed him, he wanted to be like them. He wanted what to be like them. The pressure to be like someone else will always lead you to think wrongly.
3. A persons agreement: this was with his wife’s full knowledge. So they had discussed it. When you can find someone to agree with your thought then it can sealed and it won’t be long before it is delivered into an action. An agreement from a person is not an agreement from God.

Get a hold of your thoughts today.

The Lie
Acts 5:3
Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land?

Ananias has just placed the offering at the apostles feet for them to once again to distribute to the poor and needy. His testimony would have been, “We believed led of the Lord to sell our property and give the money in this season of extravagant giving.”
Now whether Peter knew approximately how much their property was worth and could tell they hadn’t given everything or whether it was a gift of knowledge that revealed the truth it matters not. Peter announced that Ananias in lying to the apostles and the church community was actually lying to the Holy Spirit. When we try and make other people believe and look at us in a way which is not real we bring a false testimony of what the Spirit is doing in our life. It looked like the Spirit was moving powerfully through him, he wasn’t. We have lied to the Holy Spirit. Of course the lie never works and the Spirit is never mocked. Peter views this so seriously he calls it a move of Satan in his life. Even when the Spirit is moving powerfully Satan can be prowling looking for someone to devour.

Hidden Agendas
Acts 5:2
With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.

They sold their property and they received the money.
Then they talked.
At some point in the conversation they began to think about themselves.
But of course they have a problem because they are in a move of God when everyone is giving everything they have.
‘Kept back and brought the rest’ was not happening when people sold their property.
It wasn’t a wrong thought. They no doubt had lots of justifiable reasons why they needed some of the money.
They should have been honest and spoke with the apostles to see if they were happy to receive ‘the rest’ of the money.
But they wanted people to know they were 100% givers. What people thought of them was more important than truthfulness.
There are givers for self-promotion.
Many years ago in my early days of pastoring a member offered me £20,000 so long as I told the church who had given the gift. I knew this request was revealing a hidden problem the man had of ego and control. I thanked him and refused the money.
Ananias and Sapphira chose to pretend they had given all when they hadn’t. Their decision revealed an underlying problem in their lives that was at odds with where the church was at in this move of the Spirit.
It still happens today sadly.
Not every pledge is fulfilled. Even in a mo e of the Spirit there can be hidden agendas.

Titles and Names
Acts 5:1 Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property.

Without doubt the Church was in a season of a strong moving of the Holy Spirit. This manifested itself in an unprecedented extravagance of giving from the Church.
The same Spirit who enabled Jesus to give everything on the cross was here in the church once again moving the believers to surrender everything for other people. As this happened the testimony of the church grew.
The church has withstood the attacks from outside and inside they are experiencing the mercies of God. Their world may be ugly but inside the community it was beautiful.
The irony of the story that we begin to read today is that the name Ananias means ‘God is merciful’ and Sapphira means ‘beautiful’.
This couple (and nothing else is known of them) were members of the Church witnessing the Spirit and they became participants of this move of God. God is merciful and Beautiful acted like everyone else was doing who had property, they sold theirs.
What we will find out is even people who benefit from the work of the Spirit and who carry titles and names that suggest they are being used by the Spirit can be nothing more than fraudulent members of the body of Christ. It is shocking, the darkest of times for any church. We must tip-toe through this story with a renewed sense of the awe of God. Earthly titles and names are no guarantees of heavens approval.

The fields of destiny
Acts 4: 37 Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”), sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet.
Judas had a field.
Joseph had a field.
Judas received a reward of money and bought the field.
Joseph had already owned it but then sold the field.
Judas had money.
Joseph had money.
Judas fell to the floor.
Joseph knelt at the floor.
Judas had everything taken from him.
Joseph surrendered everything.
Judas’ field was given a name, the ‘Field of Blood’.
Joseph was given a new name, ‘Barnabas’, the ‘son of encouragement’.
The fields of destiny.

Encouragement
Acts 4: 36 “Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”)”
Whenever God’s people did anything significant in the Bible they needed encouragement. Are you an encourager today? Do people talk of you in such a way?

Encouragement is powerful.
1. Encouragement will take someone to a place they thought they could never enter and get them to do something they thought they would never do.
“Your assistant, Joshua son of Nun, will enter it. Encourage him, because he will lead Israel to inherit it.” Deut 1:38
2. Maybe you should look around at all that people do to make your church a great church, look at their faithful service and encourage them to continue to do that work.
“Josiah appointed the priests to their duties and encouraged them in the service of the Lord’s temple.” 2 Chronicles 35:2
3. Encouragement takes the time to listen
“You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry.” Psalm 10:17
4. Encouragement is a gift that we need to ask God for.
“We have different gifts, according to the grace given us … if it is encouraging, let him encourage.” Romans 12:6,8
5. Encouragement leaves us with hope for our future.
“For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” Romans 15:4
6. To be an encourager means that you will have to be strong at times.
“Gently encourage the stragglers, and reach out for the exhausted, pulling them to their feet.” 1 Thess 5:14 Msg.
7. Encouragement gets people to the places where they should be – church services!
“Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Hebrews 10:25

Extravagant giving
Acts 4:35 “for from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.”
Does this happen in your church?
Actually there wonderful examples of such generous giving found in many church building and mission projects.
But the verse is powerful to imagine. Here are some of my reflections on it:
The people trusted the leadership of the Church with their money.
They didn’t lay claim on their gift, they gave it to the leadership to give the gift.
The people saw their money going to meet needs.
This happened on a regular basis, seasons of extravagant giving came upon the church.
The Church leadership was not ignorant of people’s needs.
Any needy person was given money, there was no favouritism.
The people seemed to be giving freely and not after emotional persuasion.

Proverbs 11:24: “There is one who scatters, yet increases more; and there is one who withholds more than is right, but it leads to poverty.”

What stops this kind of giving?
1. The fear of not having enough.
2. The fear of not experiencing it all.
3. The fear of being hurt.
4. The fear of being left alone.
What is your worst fear right now?
It is calling you not to give anything never mind everything.

No need.
Acts 4: 34 that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales

Slow this verse down, read it carefully and ask how does the Church get to this place? It has to be each person decides that others are more important.
At the age of 20 in 336 BC, Alexander the Great inherited his father’s throne of Macedon in Greece. Two years later he was conquering the world. When he died at the age of 33 he had conquered almost all the known ancient world.
One day Alexander and a small company of soldiers approached a strongly defended, walled city. Alexander stood outside the walls. He raised his voice, demanding to see the king. The king, approaching the battlements above the invading army, agreed to hear Alexander demands.
“Surrender to me immediately” commanded Alexander
The king laughed, “Why would I surrender to you?” he asked. He was no threat to the king.
Alexander was ready to answer the challenge. He ordered his men to line up in single file. They were then ordered to start marching. They were marching straight towards a cliff that overlooked rocks hundreds of feet below. The king and his soldiers watched in shock and disbelief. One by one, Alexander’s soldiers marched without hesitation right off the cliff to their deaths. After ten had died, Alexander ordered the rest of his men to stop and return to his side.
The king and his soldiers surrendered on the spot to Alexander the Great.

Oh that we can take away all hesitation to the holding on of our rights, possessions, money and status.

On the 3rd day of her fasting and praying esther went out to die.
Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego went out to be burned to death.
Daniel went out to be eaten alive by lions.

If you stand for Jesus you may lose your life, promotion, friends, family, neighbours. That’s the threat. That’s the possibility. But others are more important.

Grace and Power
Acts 4: 33 “With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all.”

Grace is loving-kindness and favour.
Grace makes you become all that you can become. Grace releases the potential in the person.
“Treat a man as he appears to be and you make him worse. But treat a man as if he already were what he potentially could be, and you make him what he should be.” Goethe.
God doesn’t love us, speak to us, touch our lives, listen to us as we are right now, but according to our potential. As He does that and as we embrace this grace we become what we should be.

What is the worst thing that you have ever done or made plans to do?
How do you recover from that?
When the sin and shame is such that you cannot sweep it under the carpet as in days gone by? Is it over?
Have you lost so much that you might as well quit life altogether? These are real feelings.
But it is NO, for it is at that time that grace steps in.
A grace that is unfair, that seems unjust, a grace that feels like pretence, a cover-up and worst still a grace that would make it look like the bad thing was worthwhile because it turned out so good.

We need great power. When there is no way God will make a way. Through success and failure, a number of options to no options, ill health, redundancy, divorce, heartache after heartache, God will bring you through. But this power is also influence.
The world believes in the power of influence.
It is simply not true that if the cause is good enough, people will automatically buy into it and follow accordingly. People follow people of influence who promote worthwhile causes.
We need the Holy Spirit to so permeate our lives that we become people of influence.
So the prayer is indeed “more grace and more power Lord!”

Community
Acts 4:32 “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.”
This passage is one of the most incredible passages from the New Testament regarding community. They have all been filled with the Spirit again and the outworking was a united church body where no one was in need.
They were one in heart and mind
People are never convenient. If you wait till you feel like it, you will never have genuine fellowship, nor if you wait for things to be perfect. There can be a fantasy of what community should be like.
“He who loves his dream of community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter … If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even when there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we keep complaining that everything is paltry and petty, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow.” Bonhoffer. a German pastor who was martyred for resisting the Nazis
no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own.
We have no claim to anything except we are a child of God, a servant to the King. We have no claim on anything we have or title we have gained. All that we have all that we possess belongs to Him. We do not own a penny. But He owns it all.
Plato, the Greek philosopher of the 4thc.BC saw his ideal republic as one devoid of all private ownership. The people reading this were aware of this theory. The description of Luke of the church would have brought an immediate response from the Gentile readers. What was an ideal is now a reality and it is found in the church. That is still true today. The ideals of the world for peace, happiness and love are a reality and they are found in Christ’s body, the church.